Return to Sarajevo

"Return to Sarajevo" was produced by the BBC and syndicated on US stations. The winning team includes correspondent Allan Little and producers Peter Burdin and Philippa Goodrich.

"Return to Sarajevo" was produced by the BBC and syndicated on US stations. The winning team includes correspondent Allan Little and producers Peter Burdin and Philippa Goodrich.

In this three-part series, Little and Burdin revisit Sarajevo 10 years after the Dayton Peace Agreement—and 10 years after they covered the war themselves. They revisit the scenes of some of the worst destruction, conduct new interviews with some of the people they met 10 years earlier and tell how survivors there have attempted to rebuild their lives after living through a civil war.

Listen to the three-part series:

Part One: Return to Sarajevo

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p03jrw3n

During the war Allan Little visited the Serb gun positions high on a mountain ridge above Sarajevo. Immediately it was very clear to him how easy it was to pick off targets in the streets bellow. Allan spent three years in this city at the height of the siege.

Ten years on he goes back to try to make sense of what happened there. This was a war which, from the very beginning, saw civilians as both acceptable and legitimate targets.

Allan speaks to a musician, a doctor, a head a newly formed NGO for access for people with disabilities, as well as a former vice-president of a country, which shortly after gaining its independence was embroiled in one of the bloodiest conflicts in the 20th century.

Part Two: Mostar

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/documentary_archive/4361420.stm

Mostar is best known for its shiny white arched cobalt bridge - built in the 14th century by the Ottomans. This Unesco-protected arch was destroyed during the war, but it rose again to symbolise a basic conception about this country - that of bridge-building between religions, ethnic groups, friends and even enemies.

During the Balkans conflict, some of the most vicious fighting took place in the town of Mostar. The predominantly Croat west river bank was "clensed" of Bosniaks, who were forced to flee to the predomianantly Bosniak east river bank.

More than 30,000 Muslims were forced out of their homes by Croat soldiers. They then suffered nine months of shelling as they huddled in basements with little food and no running water - completely ensnared by hostile forces.

Peter Burdin and Allan Little went to Mostar in 1995 to meet the survivors of that siege. At the time they met two remarkable children who had lived through the war and were presenting a weekly radio show for other children of the siege of Mostar. 13-year-old Alem and 11-year-old Mirad were doing this as part of a Unicef programme to help traumatised children come to terms with the horrors they had witnessed during the war.

Ten years later Peter and Allan returned to Mostar to try and find what happened to those two remarkable young boys.

Part Three: My beloved Sarajevo

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p03jrw3r

During the Bosnian conflicts, many Serbs and Croats joined the predominantly Muslim Bosnian Army - and became deserters for those they abondoned.

The programme speaks to Aleksandar, a Serb who who fought against Serbs during the war in Bosnia, and Vedrana, his girlfriend - a Croat who survived the war.

Allan and Peter also meet Brane, another Serb, who, after choosing to support the cause of Serbian nationalists, found himself marooned in Pale.

Pale, formerly a bustling market town and a make-shift capital of the Bosnian Serb political and military leadership, is now a town of lost souls.

Amongst the variety of differences in opinions it seems everyone shares the same thought on one issue - Dayton was a good way to end the war, but is it a good way to forge a state?